Fault diagnosis in complex embedded systems

Locating faults through model-based diagnosis

Product failures do occur, either during testing or normal operation. With the growing complexity of embedded systems, fast, intelligent diagnosis techniques are increasingly important. Broken components must be quickly located so they can be repaired or replaced. However, traditional diagnosis is time-consuming and relies heavily on expert knowledge.

Model-based diagnosis uses behavioural reasoning based on a system hardware model and actual logging information. By reasoning backwards from anomalies to possible causes, the method automatically points to the component that most likely caused the erroneous behaviour. Improved and applied to electronic components of high-tech embedded systems, model-based diagnosis techniques demonstrate significant reductions in diagnostic effort and time. They allow effective and efficient field services that considerably reduce overall system down-time.

Method details

Method description

Identify components and possible faults

Model components’ behaviour, or generate a model automatically, e.g. from a VHDL description